It’s almost too painful to watch.
Not the sight of jungle critters and creepy crawlies, or contestants scared of heights forced into sky-high challenges.
No, the thing that’s becoming unbearable and so disappointing to see, is the feud brewing between Boy George and Charlene White in I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!
Feud is probably too strong a word as it implies it’s a mutual thing when actually all of the negative energy seems to be coming from 80s star George.
He’s fuming with Loose Women presenter Charlene. Her crime? Simply to cook for her fellow campmates.
Less than 48 hours into the show and the singer reached for a word always used to describe strong women who give leadership and say what’s on their mind. He labelled her "bossy" before going on to moan about how “controlling” she was.
Coincidentally, the title of Meghan Markle’s Archetypes podcast this week is To B or Not to B, where the Duchess of Sussex explores the origins of another nasty word beginning with B which is routinely used as a derogatory word to describe strong-minded women, especially, as she says, in business.
I immediately thought of how this relates to the situation on the ITV show.
I’m pretty confident that if the roles were reversed and it was a man in the kitchen doing most of the work, he certainly wouldn’t be labelled bossy. In fact he would likely be applauded for rolling up his sleeves and making sure his fellow campers had a nice meal while everyone sat around doing nothing.
Boy George is trying to undermine Charlene, minimise her contribution to camp life and shame her into silence. He says he doesn’t want to be bossed around and in the next breath moans that he’s not being told what to do.
From where I’m standing, Charlene, a mum of two young children, has taken up the role of nurturing camp mother.
It will be natural for her to want to cook for everyone and to make sure her fellow campers are fed. She’s just showing her maternal instincts.
If George, who now seems to have brought Scarlette around to his way of thinking, has a problem with her, why not take her to one side and have a word instead of talking about her behind her back? Talk about being two-faced.
It’s sad to see that as much as we think we have evolved when it comes to gender equality, we still fall victim to lazy stereotyping.
I for one hope Charlene decides to kick back, hang up her jungle apron and let everyone fend for themselves. Let’s see how far they get then.
